Episode #1.2

Look, there she is.

-She's here. Mrs. Garfield. -Whoa, people, please.

This is a private home. Give the family some space.

Joe, what are they all doing here?

Ma'am, Mr. Garfield just won the party's nomination for president.

Everybody gets in line, from the sewage worker on up.

New York and its purse strings are closed.

-I'll prepare one of my memorandums. -And break skulls if you have to.

They want to reform the party out from under us, let's oblige them.

We'll sit on the sidelines, hands in our pockets,

and deliver their sorry-ass ticket to Kingdom Come.

Four years, they'll be begging us for Grant.

This whole debacle will die a fucking footnote, if that.

Understood.

Gentlemen, where is your candidate? Where's Garfield?

He left for his hotel, Senator.

What the hell is he doing there? Go. Get him here, now.

-You, go, get him back here. -Right away, sir.

These delegates are getting restless. They want to go home.

We need to put forth a running mate, and we need to do it now.

Well, I, for one, say we ought to nominate Senator James Blaine.

-That's your brilliant idea? -You're the best man for the job.

That's an insult. It's the vice presidency.

Besides, Garfield's coalition and my own are one and the same.

I've got no extra support to give him.

No, for us to have any chance at eking out a win in November,

we need New York.

-Sir, I-- -It has the largest vote share.

Biggest donor base, control of the papers.

You can't seriously be suggesting we offer the position to Conkling.

His politics are the definition of corrupt.

-He's a cancer on our party. -We don't need Conkling.

We just need his machine.

Someone who knows where the bodies are buried and how best to loot them.

Might not be above a shameless appeal to personal glory.

Someone who can command the right kind of influence.

A collector for the New York Customs House,

through which three-quarters of all federal revenue is amassed.

Negotiates a complex network of job appointments.

Ah!

His generosity repaid in the form of…

Bless you.

…party contributions.

Whatever his moral leanings,

he's one of the more effective civil servants in the bureau.

Give him another one.

And exceedingly popular, to boot.

Besides, there's no place where the powers of mischief are so small

as in the vice presidency.

Arthur!

Chester Arthur!

Come here! Come here, you big old son of a bitch!

Who will be the one to tell Garfield?

Well?

Has Ohio made their offer?

They have.

Thank you, Tony.

What are the bastards willing to trade

to get my name on the ticket alongside Garfield's?

What?

For God's sake, wipe that dumb look off your face and tell me.

The Ohio men have offered me the vice presidency.

Sir.

I'm serious.

They offered it to me.

You?

Yes, sir.

They offered the second-highest office in the land

to a customs collector for the Port of New York?

Huh.

This smacks of Blaine.

Well, in that case, you ought to drop the damn thing

as you would a red-hot shoe from the forge.

I sought you to consult.

Consult? What is there to consult about?

There's something else to be said.

You know me.

You know I have not been right since my Nelly passed earlier this year.

Jesus Christ.

I feel…

I've lacked purpose, as if a ship without a rudder.

The office of the vice president is a greater honor than I'd ever dreamed of.

Chester, dear friend…

if you wish for my favor and respect,

you will contemptuously decline it.

Senator Conkling…

I shall accept the nomination.

And what's more,

I shall carry with me the majority of the New York delegation.

Oh, shall you?

Fucking ape!

Get out.

I'll be glad when you're dead You rascal, you

Excuse me.

-There he is. -Jeez.

James, you said it'd be a light reception.

Jim, meet your running mate, Chester Arthur.

I've heard lots of nice things.

Ah.

Yeah, you-- you two,

you're gonna get along swimmingly, I'm sure.

Ladies and gentlemen, my fellow Republicans!

Here's to a winning ticket!

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

Oh, oh… I… Mm…

Don't trouble with it. We'll bring another glass straightaway.

Thank you, Frederic. And I'll take another copy of the paper.

I'll see to it myself, Mr. Guiteau.

Oh, and maybe this time I'll try the Madeira.

Excellent choice.

-You like the man? -Yes, he's wonderful.

A congressman from Ohio.

Good morning, ma'am.

I'd like to put in for a word with James Garfield, the candidate.

My name's Guiteau. I'm an old friend of his from Chicago.

I'm very sorry. He isn't here now.

Oh, that's fine, that's fine. When do you expect him back?

I have a couple other appointments today, but I can move things around, and…

What do I know? Nobody tells us volunteers much.

Well, maybe I should just, uh, go upstairs and double-check anyway.

-For both our sakes. -Hang on! Mr. Cousteau!

Mr. Cousteau!

Oh, Senator Blaine!

Just the fellow I was hoping to speak with. Uh, Charles Guiteau.

I read every word of every speech you've given.

-Is that so? -Yes.

And I especially admired the way you tore apart that rascal Conkling

on the House floor back in '66.

The singed cat and the Bengal tiger.

I was quicker in my youth and far better at making lifelong foes.

A great oratory should inspire such depth of feeling.

It's-- it's a lesson I incorporate into my own rhetoric,

and I think you'd really enjoy this sermon I composed on behalf of our man, Garfield.

See, I was an early booster of his back in Chicago.

With your endorsement, I'd love to join the fold

and start stumping on the roster and getting the word out.

Have you any sort of following?

I'd say, moderate to considerable,

in between my essays and the lecture circuit.

And I run an independent paper in Illinois, The Theocrat.

Oh.

"Guiteau," that's French Huguenot, isn't it?

Yeah, you got a good ear.

Well… …yes.

Indeed, uh…

Sad to say, our roster is pretty much full at present.

Uh, we'll make sure this goes through the proper channels, nevertheless.

Keep up the good work, Guiteau. Your support means the world to us.

You didn't even write.

I learned you won the vote from the, uh, people on our lawn.

And now you would have me believe, like some fool,

that a man just falls upward toward a presidency.

You looked me in the eyes before you left for Chicago

and you swore that we were past this.

And I let you go.

I know.

-Do you… do you know? -I…

What it did to us the last time you ran off to Washington

in search of glory?

I'm sorry, Crete.

New York is a long ride from Ohio.

We need to get your things sorted.

I have no plan to go to New York.

I've already told them that I intend to do all my campaigning from home.

I am in the middle of many projects.

I am building an ugly table, for example.

Where better to get to know a man than from his front porch?

Do you know what I see when I look at you?

Because it's not some big general or a congressman.

Or a president.

You see the boy you knew at college,

mopping floors to pay his tuition.

And sneaking the editor of the paper love poems in Latin

just to watch her blush.

Mm.

Your poetry was terrible.

Well, it seemed to have worked.

If I am to do this, we do it together or not at all.

I've read everything on the man I could get my hands on.

Did you know that he was born even poorer than I was?

His father was dead at two.

Mother couldn't afford shoes for him until he was seven.

Like, destined to-to-to-to-to drown anonymous in some Ohio ditch

until he stepped up onto that stage in Chicago.

All he needed was four and a half minutes.

Four and a half minutes to secure his place in the annals of history,

to-to-to-to rise above his station from a pauper to a king.

I mean, how the fuck does that happen if not for an act of God?

-Mm. -And he's left-handed too.

We both are.

Never seen someone get so hot and bothered over a politician.

Myrna, I want to invite you to the rally in October as my guest.

All the party bigwigs will be there.

-What's Chester Arthur doing there? -He's the vice presidential nominee.

Had a regular who went by that name once. It can't be the same guy.

I'd have a better chance of being vice president than that big idiot.

I'm telling you, Myrna, there is…

an energy in the air since Garfield came into being.

And I feel, for the first time in years, that we're on the precipice of something…